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Daily Scripture

+ Ascension Thursday

There is no proof; there are only witnesses.

Readings: Acts 1:1-11 Ephesians 1:14-23 Luke 24:46-53

You are witnesses of all these things. And now I am sending down to you what the Father has promised. Stay in the city then, until you are clothed with the power from on high. [Luke 24:50-51]

In an age of technology and scientific progress, we have an explanation for everything or at least the promise of the same. Yet, there are still truly human experiences – both positive and negative—that defy human explanation. Death is one such experience. Doctors know the medical reasons for death but an autopsy doesn’t tell the whole story. Conversely, who can explain the field of energy that binds lovers for life?

During his life on earth Jesus created a field of energy that changed the course of history and it did not cease at his death or even at his resurrection. It continues to this day – locally and globally. Or else how explain the heroism of the saints of yesterday and the saints of today? Women and men, energetic witnesses who have said ‘yes’ to unconditional love under any and all circumstances continue to change the course of history in the face of those who attempt to chain the Word of God. No, most of them are not formal preachers or even religious teachers per se, but people who live the message of the Gospel of Jesus day in and day out.

The gospel today is typical of the departure of a hero. We might even consider it the conclusion of a hero story. Jesus assures his disciples that he is not abandoning them. Not only that but he will send an advocate who will empower them to continue his mission. “You will be clothed with power from on high.” They will be clothed with the mantle of Christ just as the ancient Elijah was clothed in the mantle of Elias before Elias departed in his chariot to the heavens. It’s metaphor and allegory, of course but the underlying truth of Jesus mission will continue to be proclaimed as Good News for all.

But hang in there until Pentecost when the gifts of the Spirit will be renewed and we will be empowered once more to preach the Good News—using words only when necessary.

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time 'C'

Sunday January 14, 2007

Drink up! It’s a New Ballgame!

So when is the last time you went to a wedding?

Guess what I take with me when I go to a wedding reception? You got that right—two small balls of cotton for my ears. (It’s the loud music!) Actually, I only need a tiny ball for my left ear since that is my weakest ear. Of course this all gets a bit complicated when I am seated between two elders like myself one speaking into my left ear, the other into my right—both speaking at the same time and I in the middle catching only every third word on either side. It makes for interesting conversation. I’m quite certain that I have said ‘yes’ when I should have said ‘no’ or vice versa more often than I can count. For all I know, I might even be engaged to someone at this point.

Despite the arrangement of Isaiah’s prophecy using marriage as a metaphor for Yahweh’s engagement to Israel in the first reading, John’s story about the miraculous change of water into wine is not really about a wedding or about married life. It’s not about magic either. Jesus was not a magician. It is the first of seven of John’s ‘signs’ or miracle stories that he uses to flesh out the identity of Jesus as the living ‘word’ of God and Messiah.

Miracles stories about miracle workers were common in those times. We westerners need to be cautious about slipping into an excessive literalism that distorts the meaning of the message. The gospel writers took their cue from their Old Testament ancestors and predecessors who also wrote dramatic stories about heroes whom they deemed to be ‘sons of God,’ messianic figures sent to interrupt the world order or rather to initiate a new order under God’s domain or dominion. The evangelists and other New Testament authors see these messianic figures as prototypes and the ancient oracles as divine prophecies that came to fulfillment in Christ. That’s why they use similar inspired myths and metaphors in their narratives about Jesus.

The Bible is not documentary history. It is faith history.

John opens the Prologue of his gospel with these words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Words was with God, and the Word was God.” And later on in verse fourteen he states that “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.” And then in verse 29, he presents John the Baptist pointing to Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” And finally, in verse thirty-three John points to Jesus as “the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”

That’s it in a nutshell. John was a superb theologian and a mystic to boot!

This story at Cana, which is not recorded in any other gospel, is about the joy of a new life in Christ. This miracle is his way of introducing the new age and announcing the inauguration of a new era. The miracle was not so much about the transformation of water as it was about the transformation of life. John baptized with water of repentance. The water for the ancient rite of purification becomes the wine of new life in Christ. John wants to tell us not just that Jesus turned water into wine on one occasion but that whenever he comes into our lives and into our room, he brings a new quality, which is like turning water into wine.

Mary was only the first of many witnesses who trusted that his Word would be effective. John states later that Jesus IS the living Word that has transformed all humanity. He introduces Jesus with this first of many signs even though “his hour had not yet come.” But that hour would come on Calvary when the new wine would be spilled out in blood and in faithfulness to all humanity. And who would be present again at the end? Mary and John, the narrator of this story.

When humanity yearned for an experience of God with skin, Jesus appeared on the scene. His appearance at this wedding reception assures us that our God is jubilant. To live in God is to live in joy. Jesus is the holy one who epitomizes this joy in his life of faithful love. Without God, life is dull and flat, confusing and complex. With God, life can be exciting, sparkling as new wine. Jesus is the image of God, the one who epitomizes everything that we can become.

This God-life within us can permeate our lives as it did the life of Jesus and lead to a new vision and a new beginning. Living in the consciousness of God’s life can only move us to a greater consciousness of God’s presence in all humanity, indeed, in all creation.

So we look to the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians for examples of how the living Word of God in Christ is fleshed out in his Body, the Church through the Holy Spirit.

Paul seems quite convinced that members of the Christian community had at least one of the gifts mentioned in his long list of gifts and that they were to be used for the good of all—for the common good.

Of course, when imperfect people use these gifts in an imperfect world, there is going to be tension—the tension of the cross. I reckon this is the reason why Paul goes on at great length his letters to make practical the work of the Spirit within the community against the spirit of the world. “Love is kind. Love is patient. Love doesn’t put on airs; it is not snobbish…..”

Can we dare dream of what impact the gifts of the Spirit can have on the world order? on the world of politics, on the world economy? on the Church? To deny it is to deny the very ground of our being. Therefore, as God partners with us, we will partner with one another in Christ; as God stretches for us, we will stretch for one another with the help of the Spirit; as God struggles with us, we will struggle with one another without losing our grip or giving into despair; as God dies for us in Christ, we will die for one another in faithfulness to life and love. It’s a new ballgame and there’s plenty of wine for everyone.

As we transition from the Christmas – Epiphany cycle back into ordinary time, which is anything but ordinary, I offer this lovely verse from poet Catherine de Vinck, entitled:

In the midst of confused lights
__ star wheeling crazily
summoning astronauts and kings—the God-man appears:
face, breast, limbs, hair
a male of the species
born of woman in a time of bondage
restricted to the inconclusion
of each moment, knowing no spell.

Yet, he is the First and the Last
the green shoot of the first spring
the vine that at the last day
shall still twine its secret life
around the root of all meaning.

Among galaxies
he chooses a world of fusion
a place without concord
where circling snow rings the flesh
where all things
turn upon themselves
in a snake-coil of death.

His own blood explodes
flashes under thorn and spear
and in the spill of his human honey
another creation comes forth:
“Take,” he says,”this is my body.
Drink, this is the power of my being that welds leaf to branch
man and woman to God, grief to joy.” [God With Us, by Catherine deVinck, from God of a Thousand Names,
Allelia Press, 1993, Allendale, NJ]

The water has become wine soon to become blood
and ours to drink freely and joyfully
so that we too may be for one another
and for our world
what he is to us__
Forever.

Drink up. It’s a new ballgame!